So-called poor people are not genuinely poor – JAMB Registrar

JOINT Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) Registrar Prof. Is-haq Oloyede has vowed to always return every unspent kobo by the board to the Federal Government coffers.

He said the controversies trailing the huge amount
he turned to the government coffers this year was
uncalled for.

Prof. Oloyede said JAMB is not a wasteful agency
and whatever comes in would be appropriately
remitted into the federal government purse.
The former vice chancellor of the University of Ilorin
told reporters in Ilorin, the Kwara state.
He said the board would be strengthened to make it a self-sustaining one as obtainable across the
world.

“I am not aware of any agency that is with the
nature of JAMB in the world that is being funded by government. But in Nigeria, because, we have used
to something that is not proper and to get us out of
what’s improper will even be strange,” he added.
He also promised that the board would improve on
its activities in the coming years, calling on all
stakeholders in the education sector to be up and
doing and be honest in the discharge of their
responsibilities.

Prof Oloyede revealed that the board might not
review downward the fee for the Unified Tertiary
Matriculation Examination (UTME) in 2018.
He said the board had initially thought of reducing
the fee but unwholesome activities of the so-called
poor parents in the 2017 UTME no longer make the reduction attractive as it was at the beginning.
He explained that many arrested during the last
UTME had collected huge amount of money from
the parents of the so-called poor parents while
seeking unholy support.

He said: “It’s one of the options but what’s
mitigating against it is that I’m not convinced and I
don’t think the Board too is convinced that the so-
called poor people are genuinely poor.
“Our findings have revealed that what people spent in corrupting the society, what parents paid for seeking unholy support and what parents are
prepared to part looking for how to cut corners
show that if actually they are poor they will not be
able to secure the resources they are wasting.”